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The sole purpose of any language is to tell something. Style, rhythm, the beauty of word arrangements, may be developed artistically; still, the language is never self-sufficient, but remains in the service of what is told.
Thus the motion picture language must not be judged by its aesthetic values alone, but by the service it renders to the story. The motion picture language is not the ultimate goal — instead, the story is our ultimate goal. The best use of the motion picture language is not the one that plays artistically with what the motion picture means, but the one that tells the content in the best possible way. All other efforts can be compared to the senseless though interesting sounding combination of words by Gertrude Stein or to the babbling of an idiot whose words do not make sense and consequently are no language.
We shall investigate the motion picture language from the point of view of its expressiveness. In the perfect fulfillment of its duty lies its beauty.
Space
If we were to consider the celluloid strip before us in complete ignorance of further facts connected with motion pictures, we would find that it has a definite length. We might think of unrolling the reels of the picture and spreading the celluloid band over a mile and a half of road. From this we derive the conception of space. For within this limited length we have to tell the motion picture story. We might think of going up and down the road and laying out our scenes, our events, our climax, our solution.
The word “space” is appropriate for the motion picture since its length can actually be measured by the yardstick. The novel does not know the conception of space in this sense. Its story can be told with less physical limitation. The author can end his work when he feels that he has said everything in the best possible way. But the theatre knows the powerful restraint which space puts upon its story because the play has a definite time of performance.
Excepting a few protracted pictures shown with an intermission, the motion picture form limits us to an average length between 8,000 to 20,000 feet of film, unrolled in about 90 to 180 minutes. While this represents a greater variance than is allowed by the exact time-slots in television (30, 60, 90, 120 minutes, less allocations for commercials), the limitation of space in motion pictures affects the creative aspects in many ways.
Whether our story is short or long, whether we would like to stop earlier or later, we cannot fit the length of the motion picture to the length of the story, but we must fit the length of the story to the space available. Thus space becomes the first factor determining our choice of story material.
Moreover, space forces upon us one of the essential demands of motion pictures: economy in storytelling. No matter how much money a producer is willing to spend on the physical production of a motion picture, his writers are forced to economize words, for the space allotted to them remains limited. They may conceive expensive sets, but their writing must stay economical, for the time limits are not as variable as the costs.
Consequently, the writer will have to plan his one and a half or two miles of space in a very careful manner. The more he has to tell, the thriftier he will become in the use of the footage within which he must complete his story.
The conception of space does not concern only the writer of the script; it also affects the spectator. Of necessity, the entire picture must be unrolled for the spectator in one uninterrupted sitting. The spectator cannot pause to rest. Thus the story should be such that he will not get tired, despite the fact that it must be absorbed in its entirety. Nor can the spectator ponder certain passages if they are unclear: the story proceeds relentlessly. Nor can the spectator “reread” certain passages that present difficulties for the understanding. Of course, the viewer at home alone with his VCR and a video of the film can start, stop, and rerun to his heart’s content, but our concern here is with the initial effect of a film story seen within the traditional constraints of a darkened movie house in a communal experience with other viewers.
Picture
In the beginning the motion picture consisted of one strip of celluloid on which the photography was recorded. This was the silent picture. With the invention of the talking picture a second strip was added, running parallel to the first one. This strip recorded the sound.
Together they tell the story to the audience. Together they contain the means of expression. In order to find them, we can ask what we see in the picture and what we hear in the sound.
It is a good thing that the silent picture was invented before the talkies. The fact that the pioneer filmmakers had to get along without sound taught us that we could get along without the help of dialogue. Aided by a few captions, the early motion picture was able to make a story clear — silently. Consequently, the means of expression lying in the picture strip are sufficiently expressive to tell a story. This is all the more astonishing because it is unthinkable that we should be able to understand a stage play without dialogue.
The camera records sets, props, objects, and actors; and these elements can be shown in different lighting. With the exception of some titles, the silent picture had no other means of expression; therefore these elements were able to reveal sufficient information.
The same elements exist in the novel and in the stage play, but there they are not capable of revealing sufficient information. The explanation is that the novel cannot represent them pictorially. And in the theater the amount of these elements is smaller than in the motion picture. For instance, the camera shows us many more sets than we see in the stage play. The difference in number is so considerable that the set becomes an autonomous part which must be studied specifically. Through the greater number of sets in the picture, we have also a greater number of props. Furthermore, the close-up, through the enlargement of detail, gives the prop a greater importance than in the theatre. Also, the objects are seen in action — a train passing, a plane crashing, or a river overflowing. The stage presents the actions of men, whereas the picture presents actions of men and objects. And even the motion picture actor gains new importance: First, he can be shown in actions and reactions which could not be represented by the stage. Second, the close-up reveals clearly his expression, which is hardly visible to the theatre-goer who is separated from the actor by a distance.
Although the set, the prop, the object, and the actor exist in the novel and the stage play, they all gain new values and importance in the motion picture because of its specific form. The difference is so great that even experienced novelists and playwrights must carefully examine their new capacities for revealing information before adapting their material to the screen.
The Set
By “set” we usually mean the walls of a room. But in the motion picture we must enlarge upon this conception. We must define the set as any kind of surroundings or background. It can be a living room or a mountain range or the wide open spaces.
The importance of the set results from its connection with locale or place. The set can reveal that we are in a sauna, a library, or a bedroom. Thereby the set gives us a number of important facts. Furthermore, the set of a living room can be luxurious or simple, ugly or beautiful, old-fashioned or modem. It can thereby reveal wealth or taste or even the period in which it was built.
The Prop
The prop can either be a part of the set or a part of the actor. In either case it reveals a characterization. If we see vegetables lying in baskets, the set is characterized as a market. If we see evening gowns hanging in a shop window, the store is characterized as a ladies’ dress shop. The quality of the gowns can characterize the shop as youth-oriented or sedate.
If the props are part of the actor, they help to characterize his personality. A man who wears glasses needs them to see better. Or he may use them to conceal his identity. (But that is a contradiction and represents a specific effect.)
There are props connected with certain actions. If we see a man with a fly-fishing rod, as in A River Runs Through It (1992), we assume that he goes fly-fishing. A tennis racquet carries the characterization of a tennis player, or even the intention to play tennis. (Perhaps the most famous prop bearing a characterization was the jigsaw puzzle in Citizen Kane (1941): it revealed the boredom of the life the Kanes were leading.) Other good examples of character-revealing props include the box of chocolates in Forrest Gump (1994) and the scarlet letter “A” on the harlot’s frock in The Scarlet Letter (1995).
It is tempting to say that the prop in the motion picture takes the place of the adjective in the novel. The novelist may say “an elegant woman.” The screenwriter may show her in a mink coat. The novelist may say “a messy room.” The screenwriter may show empty cans on the floor.
The Object
The difference between object and prop must not be defined too strictly. Both are things without life, but we can say that the object has the possibility of action. We can consider a car, an airplane, a ship, a volcano, a torrent, or even a rain cloud as an object capable of action. This potentiality is important. It is enough for us to see how a man takes a gun from his drawer in order to understand his intention to shoot somebody.
But beyond that, a dramatic or even an emotional charge may be attached to the object. For instance, a police officer loses his gun to a killer through his own fault. Subsequently, his pal is shot with that same gun. The identity of the weapon powerfully motivates the officer’s haunting self-reproach.
The Actor
The looks of the actor already reveal a characterization. An actor can look like a villain or a kind person, like an intellectual or a moron. Beyond this constant characterization, the actor can express momentary and changing moods such as fury, pain, resignation, submission, love, jealousy, or fatigue. At times, such expressions let us understand either a happening which took place before or an intention which the actor is about to execute. At times, it may be enough to show the actor’s reaction. One close-up of a man who sees his rival kiss the heroine is enough to expose an important dramatic conflict. If his painful expression turns into resignation, we know that he intends to give up the woman. If it turns into jealousy, we know that he intends to fight for her.
Although the dress of the actor could be considered a prop, it must be mentioned here because it adds so much to the characterization. Consider the information given by a medical smock, a Red Cross uniform, a Salvation Army dress. But civilian dress also gives us information: it can be expensive, elegant, neglected, poor, soiled, or clumsy; it can be evening gown, sports clothes, or overalls. It can be modern or period costuming. Beyond that, an elegant dress can be tom, a coat unbuttoned, a collar open. Together with other information such dress can tell an entire happening.
The Lighting
Lighting can tell us whether it is dawn, daylight, dusk, or night. The different hours of the day have different effects upon us, as we shall see in the chapter about time.
A change in lighting can indicate that the door or a window shutter has been opened. It can indicate that a lamp has been lit; it can indicate that the spotlights of a car are approaching or that a searchlight is directed to a person.
Lighting is of utmost importance for conveying the mood of a picture. But it can reveal only a limited amount of direct story information.
Sound
We should not consider the invention of the sound film as an important revolution, but simply as an addition to the already existing means of expression. The vital function of sound, overshadowing all its other applications, lies in the dialogue.
The Dialogue
The possibility of letting the actors speak seemed to make the motion picture equal to the stage play. But the dialogue in the motion picture has a different role and different values. You can read the dialogue of a stage play and understand the whole action without further explanation. But you could not confine yourself to the reading of the dialogue in a screenplay if you wanted to understand the happenings. The difference is that the dialogue in the stage play is the principal means of expression, while in the picture the dialogue shares its role as a source of information with all the other elements which were mentioned before and which are yet to be investigated.
This raises the question of how big a part the dialogue should play in the telling of the story. Soon after this new field was opened, there were great disputes among the moviemakers as to the use of dialogue. Both extremes were advocated: utmost limitation of dialogue or the fullest use of it, as in the theatre.
People speak in real life and therefore they should speak in motion pictures. It would be senseless to despise the use of dialogue. But it must be put in its proper place within the frame of the whole.
Two considerations will help us to determine its function. We must realize that dialogue is by far the easiest way of exposing facts. It is the simplest source of information for the lazy writer. Therefore he is tempted to exaggerate the use of dialogue and to neglect the other elements. This leads to the one extreme.
As an extreme it should be avoided. Although dialogue is the simplest way for the writer to convey facts, it is not the easiest way for the spectator to receive them. The spoken word is difficult to absorb. Every orator and every listener to public speeches and every student in school knows how tiresome it is to listen to a long speech. Soon the power of concentration dissolves. Dialogue is more interesting than the long speech, inasmuch as two people are speaking; the quicker the dialogue changes from one to the other, the better monotony is avoided. But even so, our capacity to absorb through the ear is limited. Therefore, although it is a tempting outlet of information for the writer, it is also a dangerous one, because the audience may get tired and then refuse to understand.
One picture is worth a thousand words. It is a peculiarity of the modem human mind to be fascinated by the visual effect while easily growing tired of listening. The impressions which we get through the eye have an almost hypnotic power over us. It is easy for a spectator to leave during a speech, it is possible for him to leave a stage performance, but it is difficult to drag him out of a movie house even though the picture may be awful.
For this reason it may be wise for the writer to depend more on the visual sources of information than on dialogue. Demosthenes, who stuttered, learned how to speak by putting pebbles in his mouth. The writer who wants to learn how to use dialogue in the motion picture should try to make his story understandable without the spoken word. In this way he will learn how to handle the other means of expression to the fullest extent. Later he can set this rule for himself: dialogue should be used when all other means of expression are exhausted and cannot contribute any further. Dialogue should be the last resort. Then it will be in its right place. Moreover, there is a very practical consideration which imposes utmost economy of dialogue: audiences in foreign houses where a different language is spoken will be bored by overly talkative pictures.
Noise
Dialogue is not the only function of sound. There is another one which we might call “noise.” (Footsteps. A moving car. A woman exhaling in ecstasy.) Any land of action is accompanied by a certain kind of noise. It would be implausible to have a gun go off on the screen without hearing the noise of the shot. It would be implausible to see a train without hearing the noise of the wheels on the rails. This in itself is not interesting because it is so obvious; but the reverse process is well worth studying. A certain kind of noise represents a certain action. If the noise is specific enough, we can conclude to the action producing it. The noise of a gunshot is distinctive enough; we do not have to see the gun. The noise of the railroad cars is distinctive enough to make us realize that a train is passing without showing the train. Noise not only accompanies the picture but has a life and importance of its own.
We must keep in mind that the field of the picture is limited. The sound, however, being independent, can and must give us information beyond that sector. In this respect noise is valuable: it tells us more than we can see. To give a simple example: an actress walks from the stage to her dressing room. Nothing can be seen but the hallway through which she walks. But we hear the noise of applause. This noise exposes an enthusiastic audience. The noise is dimmed and becomes loud again at certain intervals. What else could it expose than the raising and the lowering of the curtain? Our immediate purpose is to show the actress going to her dressing room. But without losing any time, without any special effort, we give an enormous amount of information; we indicate that there is an audience in the theatre, that this audience is enthusiastic, that the actress is successful; the realization that the curtain goes up and down contributes to the characterization of stage and theatre. We can add new elements by showing the reaction of the actress to this noise; she is grateful for the applause, or she is tired of it, or she is triumphant.
Thus sound is valuable because it can contribute to the story without taking up any space. It helps the action without slowing it up or hindering it.
In I Want to Live (1958) Robert Wise proved his masterly use of the film medium by an uncannily expressive handling of noise. After Barbara Graham has been convicted, the newspaper man who had taken her side leaves the penitentiary. Looking back, he expresses anger at society by shutting off his hearing aid. Suddenly all the street noises have ceased, and the audience no longer hears the click of the car door or the starting of the motor.
One of the very important functions of noise is connection. Scenes can be cut into different shots. But the sound remains continuous. While we can turn our eyes upon different objects, our ears will always hear the same noise. If the lens represents the dividing element, the microphone represents the connection principle. In the store of a tailor, for instance, we can have ten shots, each one showing something different. But the noise of the sewing machine will be continuous. Dialogue is an excellent means of connection. No matter which actor is being shown, the dialogue remains continuous. No experienced editor will change from one shot to the other at the end of the dialogue line. He will put the end of the speech upon the other person’s face. If he failed to do that, he would disrupt the action. He also knows that it is dangerous to change shots during silence.
The celluloid band which carries the picture can be cut and changed at liberty. But the sound track must be handled delicately because it is continuous.
An integral part of the sound track, but not of the story, is the background music. Film composers are seldom consulted when the screenplay is being written. Instead, the finished picture is presented to them with the request to compose music to fit the story, a procedure which is not always to their liking.
The average moviegoer absorbs the background music subconsciously, hardly ever becoming aware of what he hears. Upon leaving the movie theatre, he may not even remember the underlying main-theme unless it was brought out by an actor who sings it, as the piano player does in Casablanca (1942).
Nonetheless, background music contributes substantially to the presentation of the story. Even though its presence scarcely penetrates the consciousness of the spectator, its absence, at times, would be felt harshly.
Some years ago, the composers’ branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences tried out the following experiment: sequences of several pictures were shown (1) together with their background music, (2) without it, (3) and then the background music was played alone. The effect was surprisingly strong: when run without underlying music, some sequences lost half their meaning and expressiveness; when the sound track alone was run off, a great deal of the story content was conveyed to the audience, even though they saw nothing.
Thus background music may also be considered a source of information in the motion picture. Its information is not direct, however, as is that of noise or picture. We might say that it expresses information in a third dimension, namely, emotion and mood.
In this sense, it comes close to having the power of revealing, if not the thoughts, at least the feeling of the actors, thereby overcoming one of the crucial lacks of the motion picture form. In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) Burt Bacharach’s music actually contributed to the characterization of the leads. In Rebecca (1940) Joan Fontaine walks through all the rooms which were once inhabited by the former Mrs. De Winter. This silent sequence, before the music was added, was not expressive; but after the picture was scored, the addition of haunting, mysterious, frightening melodies made for a gripping effect.
The expression of emotion and mood by music is so strong that it can actually supply story information. This fact is frequently abused in mediocre pictures. A sweet, syrupy violin tremolo indicates or betrays that a love scene is to follow immediately. A man approaches a house, ambling along without any premonition, but the audience is informed that something terrible is going to happen by a wild, furious crescendo of background music. Inasmuch as these instances do not reveal emotions of the actor or of the audience, but of the director, they should be considered wrong.
Here are two correct examples: A woman enters her home and finds a letter on her desk. Upon opening it, she sees that it is from her husband, who was missing in action. Before the audience knows of the letter’s content, a few sharp chords accentuate the feeling of surprise and shock. Or a woman is told by the man she loves that he is going to marry a young girl. The camera moves in close so as to show her emotions. At the same time the music swells to a powerful crescendo, so much that it drowns the dialogue of the man in the background, which at this point is no longer important. Thus the crescendo of the background music has the same effect of intensifying the emotion as does the close-up of the camera.
A further function of background music is the connecting influence upon a series of shots or even scenes. For this reason, an entire sequence of disconnected flashes or shots can be based upon a strong melodic theme, letting them flow, so to speak, on a continuous stream of music. We may remember that the change from shot to shot represents an incision, whereas the sound is uninterrupted.
Sometimes a classical composition is actively integrated into the film, as is a Mozart piece throughout Elvira Madigan (1967), or as various Mozart works are used in Amadeus (1984), a picture about the composer’s life. On the whole, however, background music has no independent life because it is composed to serve the story. Consequently, orchestration effects are more useful than melodic material. The same audience which loves to hear the harmonies of Beethoven or Schubert on the concert stage might be disturbed by them were they used as background music for films. Modem music, with its tendencies towards tone poems and programmable material, is better suited for the task of serving the story. The abstract music of Johann Sebastian Bach, complete in itself, could not be forced to supplement the contents of a scene, whereas Claude Debussy’s La Mer or Clair de Lune, when played in a concert hall, evoke scenes and pictures in our minds.
The merits of the motion picture score are determined by its functional services rather than by its qualities as a concert piece. Nevertheless, many of the great contemporary concert composers have written motion picture scores.
Most modem film composers prefer to see a script as early as possible, preferably long before any principal photography occurs. And it is not unusual for their musical ideas to contribute directly to some of what is actually filmed, as in The Preacher’s Wife (1996), which contains both religious and secular music conceived for the special abilities of sacred cum pop diva Whitney Houston, who plays the wife.
Much of modem film music is in fact more than simply background enhancement for a film director’s vision, as attested to by the yearly smash hit singles and sound track albums that are spawned by both second rate and blockbuster motion pictures.